Kim O'Hara wrote:More generally, geological ages are a very poor guide to time scales which affect human society, as I've said to you before. A recent climate study has charted global temperature change over the last 12 000 years - i.e. the whole span of human civilisation. It looks like this:See that red bit at the end? It doesn't look natural, does it? It isn't. We did it.

Earth didn't exist just for 12,000 years. You are providing ONLY 12,000 years of data (cherry picking) to make sweeping statements about our role in Earth's climate which has 4.5 billion history and could have experienced as big if not bigger rates of temperature change that we have today.

On your chart, please notice a sharp increase in anomaly around the left part of the graph at approximately 10,000-7,000 years ago. What cause that spike? What brand of cars did those humans drive?

”Even the water melting from the snow-capped peaks can find its way to the ocean"

The short answer to all of your objections is that a lot of very smart people have spent their whole careers learning about our climate and they are sure about what is happening now and why it is happening, so we should shut up and pay attention. The long answer to all your objections is in the threads I have just mentioned and I am not going to regenerate them for you. Please go and re-read them for yourself, following all the links I presented there. If you really want to learn the subject properly, sign up for a course like http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/10/science-of-climate-change-online-class-starting-next-week-on-coursera/

Nemo wrote:You really make Americans look like idiots. No on else on earth believes this corporate propaganda nonsense. How did America turn into a banana republic? Pravda had better lies than this drivel.

Please refute what I've said. Simply using ad hominem without backing up with arguments is definitely not going to look convincing to those who think and analyze.

”Even the water melting from the snow-capped peaks can find its way to the ocean"

Kim O'Hara wrote:Alex, I don't want to be as rude to you as Nemo just was. On the other hand, I can't see much point in continuing to respond to your objections since you still seem completely incapable of seeing how ill-founded, illogical and/or anti-scientific they are.

You have not demonstrated that, you've just claimed this without proof.

Kim O'Hara wrote:" geological ages are a very poor guide to time scales which affect human society,"

What about rate of change in the past using same relevant timescales? Lets compare that and see if today's rate of change is really that catastrophic or unique.

You are probably refering to my other statement (with the graph showing CO2 as high as 7,000ppm) about which I was NOT talking here. My question is different from that because I am not talking about absolute levels which could have gotten over millions of years, but about rate of change.

”Even the water melting from the snow-capped peaks can find its way to the ocean"

Kim O'Hara wrote:Alex, I don't want to be as rude to you as Nemo just was. On the other hand, I can't see much point in continuing to respond to your objections since you still seem completely incapable of seeing how ill-founded, illogical and/or anti-scientific they are.

You have not demonstrated that, you've just claimed this without proof.

Alex,I have no proof - I admit that - but your own statements here in this thread (setting aside previous threads for a moment) are very good evidence.For instance, you said

On your chart, please notice a sharp increase in anomaly around the left part of the graph at approximately 10,000-7,000 years ago. What cause that spike? What brand of cars did those humans drive?

The slope on the left part of the graph shows a temperature increase smaller than the one on the right over a span of nearly two thousand years, i.e. twenty times as long as the spike on the right. One can (and did) happen naturally; the other couldn't (and didn't).Another example: you quote NASA on the role of CO2 in the upper atmosphere without (apparently) noticing that NASA is one of the primary research bodies validating and extending our knowledge of climate change or (apparently) realising that they are not so dumb that they would believe two contradictory things at once.

Alex123 wrote:

Kim O'Hara wrote:" geological ages are a very poor guide to time scales which affect human society,"

What about rate of change in the past using same relevant timescales? Lets compare that and see if today's rate of change is really that catastrophic or unique. You are probably refering to my other statement (with the graph showing CO2 as high as 7,000ppm) about which I was NOT talking here. My question is different from that because I am not talking about absolute levels which could have gotten over millions of years, but about rate of change.

I did work through that for you in one or both of the previous threads - not just absolute values but also rates of change.

I've been trying to work out just why you reject mainstream climate science as you do. Can you tell us?If you do, I may be able to show you why or how your rejection is invalid.

Here in Australia, the recently-elected conservative has promised to abolish the recently-introduced carbon tax, and replace it with a plan which, among other things, pays the electricity industry to decrease their emissions.

It is a dreadful policy outcome, and is shaping to be the first instance in the world of a country reversing a carbon tax. And, furthermore, one that is working, and is really not causing a lot of pain - figures showed it contributed around one third of one percent to the CPI in its first 6 months, and consumers hardly notice it. Meanwhile, it really has started reducing emissions, also.

Up until three years ago, it was supported by both sides of politics. But the Conservatives housed some die-hard climate sceptics, and they sniffed an opportunity. They then started a very effective scare campaign about the Great Big New Tax on Everything. Of course they won the argument hands down, nobody wants a carbon tax, and the only reason it was going to get up in the first place was that it was meant to be a bi-partisan response to a global problem.

Anyway, the conservatives were only elected in early September, and parliament hasn't sat again yet. But their first order of business is to introduce the legislation to scrap the tax. It is a monumentally stupid and backwards thing to be doing, as the United Nations Climate Commissioner has said. In fact, 2013 has been Australia's hottest year and many records have been broken - hottest overall day, longest stretch of hot weather, hottest winter, hottest spring, and so on.

I think if some activist group organizes a protest outside Parliament House, I'll go and hold a placard.

Learn to do good, refrain from evil, purify the mind ~ this is the teaching of the Buddhas

Not so long ago the Conservative government in Canada sacked many government scientists who were charged with monitoring environmental issues, especially the oceans. Canada also pulled out of the Kyoto protocol.

I think the system simply has to crash and burn before models will actually change.

Indrajala wrote:Not so long ago the Conservative government in Canada sacked many government scientists who were charged with monitoring environmental issues, especially the oceans. Canada also pulled out of the Kyoto protocol.

I think the system simply has to crash and burn before models will actually change.

My doctorate is not in the hard sciences, although it is posited on the scientific model ( I am an MD ).Until recently I sat on the fence on the issue. I have never commented on it on this forum. Or indeed off line. I have kept up with latest data in a semi-detached way.Recently the fence became uncomfortable, as fences tend to be and I wearily climbed off it.I think the whole ' man made climate change ' hypothesis is utter bollocks.Just that.No further interest. I will not sully this thread with anymore of my heresy. I mean that.

I really can't fathom how people can doubt the science. I suppose it is an abject lesson in how democracy will fail the challenge of unchecked population growth. In the end, Malthus will be proven right.

But anyway. I'm going.....

Learn to do good, refrain from evil, purify the mind ~ this is the teaching of the Buddhas

I don't get how the idea that you can burn hundreds of billions of gallons of hyrdocarbons and NOT affect the composition of the atmosphere, is a hard to understand.

After all humans almost single-handedly have wiped out thousand of species of animals, plants and fish.

We've encircled the entire planet with junk:

Filled up the ocean with plastic debris:

How is the fact that we are changing the composition of the atmosphere hard to understand? What is so difficult to get about it? You put sensors up, you make measurements, and you see that the composition of the atmosphere has been changed by human activities. It is something that is not very hard to measure.

It's not rocket science. IT'S JUST SCIENCE!!

Learn to do good, refrain from evil, purify the mind ~ this is the teaching of the Buddhas

I really can't fathom how people can doubt the science. I suppose it is an abject lesson in how democracy will fail the challenge of unchecked population growth. In the end, Malthus will be proven right.

But anyway. I'm going.....

Great! There's this as well:

Avaaz wrote:As NSW burns, Tony Abbott and his coal cronies are working to kill the carbon price, our best tool to fix climate change and prevent more ferocious fires in the future. But the new ALP leadership can stop him if they decide climate is a fight they want to pick -- let's show them it is!

Kim O'Hara wrote:but your own statements here in this thread (setting aside previous threads for a moment) are very good evidence.For instance, you said

On your chart, please notice a sharp increase in anomaly around the left part of the graph at approximately 10,000-7,000 years ago. What cause that spike? What brand of cars did those humans drive?

The slope on the left part of the graph shows a temperature increase smaller than the one on the right over a span of nearly two thousand years, i.e. twenty times as long as the spike on the right. One can (and did) happen naturally; the other couldn't (and didn't).

Yes, in that 12,000 year segment the increased CO2 on the right is a bit bigger than the one at the left (which was also quite big). However this alone cannot be used as a proof of AGW because you have only that 12,000 chart. I wonder, if we would take rate of change during 1913-2013 and compare this 100 year segement with 100 year segments during the past 100,000 or 1m, 5m, 10m, or even greater period of time - will this 1913-2013 rate of change be greater? If so, then yes AGW seems likely using that chart as an argument.

I am all for clean, green environment.It is terrible when oil spills occur.I do consider humans responsible for pollution.In ideal world we would not pollute the environment, cut trees, etc.I am concerned with problems with Nuclear power plants (ex. Fukushima). Here it is human fault.

”Even the water melting from the snow-capped peaks can find its way to the ocean"

Alex123 wrote:Yes, in that 12,000 year segment the increased CO2 on the right is a bit bigger than the one at the left (which was also quite big). However this alone cannot be used as a proof of AGW because you have only that 12,000 chart. I wonder, if we would take rate of change during 1913-2013 and compare this 100 year segement with 100 year segments during the past 100,000 or 1m, 5m, 10m, or even greater period of time - will this 1913-2013 rate of change be greater? If so, then yes AGW seems likely using that chart as an argument.

Okay ... start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrupt_climate_changeBut be very careful about just how abrupt and how big previous changes were, and whether they had causes that we know have not occurred in the last 100 years, e.g. cometary impact or mega-volcano.Report back if you find a change comparable to the last 100 years without such a catastrophic cause, or when you decide that yes, we are the catastrophic cause this time.

Alex123 wrote:I am all for clean, green environment.It is terrible when oil spills occur.I do consider humans responsible for pollution.In ideal world we would not pollute the environment, cut trees, etc.I am concerned with problems with Nuclear power plants (ex. Fukushima). Here it is human fault.